Black Evangelicals, White Evangelicals, and Franklin Graham's Repentance 1MAR12 & A GIRL'S MESSAGE TO ALL CHRISTIANS (VIDEO) & Franklin Graham apologizes for questioning Obama’s faith 28MAR12

HERE is a great article on the different perceptions of Christianity by Christians from Sojourners, followed by a beautiful video on this same issue.....

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When Franklin Graham expressed doubts about President Obama’s Christian faith during an interview on Morning Joe last week, it reminded me of an uncomfortable dinner I had in the late ‘90s.
I sat down for a pleasant meal in the home of two great friends — one of them a white evangelical faith leader deeply committed to social justice. Well into the evening’s conversation — when we’d dropped all our pretenses and our exchanges moved well past mealtime niceties — one friend asked me something that caught me entirely off guard.
“Do you think Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Christian?” he said.
I was dumbstruck. I had never heard anyone actually ask that question before.
“Yes,” I replied. “What would make you doubt that?”
As he explained, it became clear: My friend wasn’t sure whether Dr. King was a Christian because King’s Christianity didn’t look like my friend’s Christianity.
Dr. King valued justice. My friend valued justice.
King professed personal faith in Jesus. My friend professed personal faith in Jesus.
And yet my friend still was hung up about King’s faith because, to his eye, King didn’t seem interested in “evangelism” as my friend defined it — i.e. the practice of calling sinners into personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ, whose death on the cross is payment for our sins.
Twentieth-century white evangelical understanding of the Gospel guided (and in many ways defined) my friend’s Christian walk. Therein lies the disconnect between his Christian faith and Dr. King’s.
According to sociologists Michael Emerson and Christian Smith (authors of Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America), only one thing separates white and black evangelicals, but it makes all the difference in the world: Vastly different experiences of structural and systemic oppression.
Black evangelicals have a long history of interaction with oppressive systems and structures. When African Americans read the Bible, they see the more than 2,000 passages of scripture about God’s hatred for poverty and oppression. They see God’s desire for systems and structures to be blessings to all of humanity — not a curse to some and a blessing for others.
And they see Jesus’ own declaration that he had come to preach good news to the poor, which, by the way, is decidedly not a reference to the “spiritually impoverished.” Jesus meant that he had come to preach good news (of liberation, freedom, and new life) to people trapped in material poverty.
White evangelicals generally do not experience such systemic oppression. According to Emerson and Smith, most white evangelicals don’t prioritize or even see the thousands of references in the Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament about structural and systemic injustice.
Accordingly, the Gospel — and by extension their evangelism — is about only one thing: Personal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, who died for their sins, and a personal relationship with him.
Black evangelicals also have personal faith that Jesus’ death paid for their sins, but their Gospel doesn’t end with personal (and individual) salvation. For Dr. King and Sojourner Truth and Fannie Lou Hamer and the Rev. John Perkins and Nelson Mandela and for hundreds of thousands of Black Christians around the world and for me, the good news of the Gospel is that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection were for the redemption of both individual souls and the redemption of whole societies.
Franklin Graham’s father, Dr. Billy Graham, didn’t always understand this, either. The elder Graham’s revivals began as segregated affairs, but the Supreme Court’s desegregation ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) agitated his conscience and he quickly course corrected. From that point on, Billy Graham never again held a segregated revival.
What’s more, in 1957 Dr. Graham invited Dr. King, to share his pulpit for a 16-week revival in New York City.
For Billy Graham, Martin King was a Christian.
In the last decade or so, a new generation of white evangelicals — such as my friends Shane Claiborne, Kelly Moltzen, Josh Harper, and others — have intentionally displaced themselves, moving into impoverished communities of color in order to gain the experience their parents and grandparents lacked. As a result, their white evangelical eyes are open.
They see those 2,000 scriptures about poverty and injustice. And this new generation of white evangelicals is committed to fight systemic and structural justice because of the Gospel.
So, it grieved me to hear Franklin Graham’s doubt-filled commentary on President Obama’s faith.
Obama has described in his own words (and quite publicly) how he has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, how as a young community organizer in Chicago in the late ‘80s he walked down the aisle of a church during an altar call to make a public profession of that faith — a practice developed by one of the greatest American evangelists of all time, Charles Finney.
The president has clearly professed his belief that Jesus died on the cross as payment for his sins. And Obama repeatedly invokes the words of Jesus that guide his world view: “Just as you did to the least of these, you did to me.” (Matthew 25:40)
For a moment, Franklin Graham’s cynicism tested my own faith. I wondered if he had any idea that, when he questioned the president’s faith, it felt as if he were questioning my faith.
I wanted to know if the transformational power of Jesus’ death and resurrection, which is powerful enough to save our souls also could open Franklin’s eyes and soften his heart to the world and experience of his black brothers and sisters.
Repentance is sweet, not only for the sinner, but also for the world. It reminds us all of what is right; what is good; what is true. Franklin Graham apologized for his comments and repented this week.
This public discussion is now a lesson for us all. I have an abiding hope that, just maybe, the power of Jesus’ resurrection is powerful enough even to save the church.
Lisa Sharon Harper is the Director of Mobilizing at Sojourners. She is also co-author of Left, Right and Christ: Evangelical Faith in Politics and author of Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican ... or Democrat.

A Girl's Message To All Christians:

Hey there! I'm Emanuella. I'm a Christian. I have been a "good" Christian most of my life. It was my identity. I used to like to tell people how "good" I was, how I kept all the Commandments. I thought that was "Good"......

Then I realized something...I Failed!!! "Christian" was just a name I wore...kind of like a pretty coat over a dirty body...It didn't match my heart. Here's why:

If you were an Atheist or Agnostic or anything else...And if you didn't agree with me...I would disdain you as a person. I feel like a hypocrite! I feel disgusting! And I can't take it anymore! I wasn't interested in being your "Friend". I just wanted to change you. I thought that was my job.

Christianity is about being like "Christ". Jesus loved everyone, First. If they didn't accept what He said, He still loved them. Its not my job to change you, I can't. But its my job to love you. That I can.

So this is an appeal to my Christian Brothers and Sisters, not all but some... stop the Damnation. Stop the Judgement. Stop the Religism. Thats not our business.

It doesn't matter how well you can preach...How many Bible Verses you've memorized or How many people "think" you are all that. If you don't have love, you're nothing. Love is not a chore. Its a revelation. The Christ you serve revealed it in its purest form.

Gandhi said: "I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians."

Don't be one of "those". This is an invitation....
Start the LOVE...Join the movement...

Franklin Graham apologizes for questioning Obama’s faith

Adelle M. Banks, Religion News Service | Feb 28, 2012 

     

 

WASHINGTON (RNS) Evangelist Franklin Graham apologized Tuesday (Feb. 28) to President Obama for questioning his Christian faith and said religion has "nothing to do" with Graham's decision not to support Obama's re-election.

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Graham's apology came after a group of prominent black religious leaders criticized the evangelist for saying he did not know whether Obama is a Christian and suggesting that Islamic law considers him to be a Muslim.
Graham, president of the relief organization Samaritan's Purse and the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, said he now accepts Obama's declarations that he is a Christian.
"I regret any comments I have ever made which may have cast any doubt on the personal faith of our president, Mr. Obama," he said in a statement.
"I apologize to him and to any I have offended for not better articulating my reason for not supporting him in this election -- for his faith has nothing to do with my consideration of him as a candidate."
Graham said he objects to Obama's policy stances on abortion and same-sex marriage, which Graham considers to be in "direct conflict" with Scripture.    
More than a dozen members of a religious subgroup of the NAACP had accused Graham of "bearing false witness" and fomenting racial discord.
"We can disagree about what it means to be a Christian engaged in politics, but Christians should not bear false witness," the NAACP statement said. "We are also concerned that Rev. Graham's comments can be used to encourage racism."

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When asked in a recent MSNBC interview if Obama was a Christian, Graham responded, "I cannot answer that question for anybody." He went on to say that because Obama's father was a Muslim, "under Islamic law, the Muslim world sees Barack Obama as a Muslim."
By contrast, Graham said there is "no question" that GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum is a "man of faith" because "his values are so clear on moral issues." Santorum has also faced criticism for saying the president has a "phony theology" that is unbiblical.
"By his statements, Rev. Graham seems to be aligning himself with those who use faith as a weapon of political division," the NAACP said. "These kinds of comments could have enormous negative effects for America and are especially harmful to the Christian witness."
Signatories of the open letter included presidents of the National Baptist Convention, USA; the National Baptist Convention of America; the Progressive National Baptist Convention; as well as bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

Additional Information

• Watch: Franklin Graham on MSNBC's "Morning Joe"

     

 

Senate Democrats Meet To Find More Cuts For Long-Term Funding Deal With GOP 24FEB11

SHUT THE GOVERNMENT DOWN! The cuts being proposed by democrats, tea-baggers and the gop are immoral, and if they are intent on breaking the backs of the poor and working class then let everyone experience the pain. This is a wake up call America! These politicians are representing the military-industrial complex and corporate America, NOT the needs of the people. If anything needs to be cut it is the bloated, wasteful, destructive Pentagon budget and the tax loopholes for corporate America allowing them not to pay their fair share. As the Rev martin Luther King Jr said 
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.
WASHINGTON - Democratic leadership and Appropriations Committee staffers are meeting Thursday afternoon to find ways to cut social spending from the remainder of the fiscal year 2011 budget, a Senate Democratic aide told HuffPost. The object of the gathering is to identify cuts that will satisfy House Republicans' demands for drastic spending reductions despite the flagging economy.
Multiple leadership aides, however, said that the cuts will be made to a long-term budget resolution, rather than a short-term spending bill, as Republicans insist. That the two parties are now arguing merely over how quickly to make cuts indicates that their positions may be drawing close enough to avoid a government shutdown - without the GOP giving much up yet.
"It sounds like Senate Democrats are making progress towards our goal of cutting government spending to help the private sector create jobs," said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). "Hopefully, that means they will support the short-term CR with spending cuts that we will pass next week, rather than shutting down the government."
Boehner is traveling on a fundraising tour.
House Republicans have proposed a measure that would keep the government funded for two more weeks past the March 4th deadline -- when money runs out--asking for $4 billion in cuts. Democrats have not budged in insisting any stopgap be drawn along the lines of current funding levels.
The compromise offered to the GOP on Thursday would not change that. "This is not about a short-term CR," said a leadership aide. "We are planning to make a serious offer to the House Republicans on a long-term CR that contains deeper cuts than were originally proposed. And if the Republicans will meet us in the middle of this offer we might be able to avert the need for a short-term CR."
Senate Democrats are hoping that by offering the first concession, House GOPers will either respond in kind or take the blame for a shutdown. Yet each Democratic negotiating tactic has led to additional cuts. As the talks drag on, Republicans get closer and closer to their full goal. Meanwhile, the wrangling over a stopgap measure to temporarily avert a shutdown has the capacity to confuse the debate.

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"Someone should pressure them and say 'Why are you so focused on the short term CR when it is it long term CR that matters?" said a top Senate Democratic aide.
The long-term goal would be reached by cutting $8.5 billion in earmarked projects. An additional roughly $25 billion could be cut, said Democratic aides, by moving up reductions that Obama had proposed for the next year so that they take effect sooner. During Thursday afternoon's meeting, lawmakers will discuss what specific programs will be set aside for targeting.

Our Military Spending and Spiritual Death from SOJO 27JAN 11

FROM SOJO, a honest statement on what our government must do to address the budgetary and economic crisis we are facing....

In Tuesday evening’s generally well-received State of the Union speech, President Obama appealed to the center with talk of reducing the deficit and controlling federal spending.  He had many good ideas about investing in education, innovation, and clean energy. But while all of that is important, one concrete proposal raises problems.
The president urged that annual domestic spending be frozen for the next five years, even though, as he noted, domestic spending is only about 12 percent of the budget (or about $400 billion per year). There are 44 million people still in poverty and the number is increasing. There are 14.5 million people unemployed and another 11.5 million working part-time because they can’t find a full time job, or who have given up on looking for work. The U.S. population growth is about 2.5 million per year; five years from now there will 12.5 million additional people. A “freeze” in reality will mean drastic reductions in what will be necessary to meet the basic expenses of government and the needs of people. It has been said here before, but is worth saying again: Domestic spending is not the cause of our deficit.
The annual military budget, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is about $725 billion, $3 billion per week. Including the related costs of veterans benefits, other security-related spending, nuclear weapons spending, intelligence spending; the total exceeds $1 trillion per year. Yet all that was mentioned in the State of the Union about that was, “The Secretary of Defense has also agreed to cut tens of billions of dollars in spending that he and his generals believe our military can do without.” No specific cuts, not even a commitment to a freeze.
More than 40 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned us that, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” With the trajectory we’re on, we will be more than just approaching spiritual death in 2015 — we’ll be almost there. And proposals to cut government spending that do not include significant cuts in military spending are contributing to that death.
Duane Shank is senior policy advisor at Sojourners.

I HAVE A DREAM SPEECH

REV MARTIN LUTHER KING JR would have been 82 years old today had he not been assassinated, taken from us much too early in his life. I love watching this speech, hearing him speak these words. I get goosebumps hearing this speech, I get them even reading it, as I do a least once a year. So here it is for all of us, great words from a great man to a great nation meant to make us even greater.....and we need to hear these words, and words like these, more and more in these times.....Thank you Rev King!

"I Have a Dream" I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men - yes, black men as well as white men - would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check that has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice. We have also come to his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end but a beginning. Those who hoped that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "for whites only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today my friends - so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification - one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father's died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!" And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi - from every mountainside. Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring - when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children - black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics - will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" --- Distribution statement: Accepted as part of the Douglass Archives of American Public Address (http://douglass.speech.nwu.edu) on May 26, 1999. Prepared by D. Oetting (http://nonce.com/oetting). Permission is hereby granted to download, reprint, and/or otherwise redistribute this file, provided this distribution statement is included and appropriate point of origin credit is given to the preparer and Douglass.

Ike, MLK And The Military-Industrial Complex 17JAN11

THIS is a great post from the WAR IS BUSINESS blog (click the header or use the permanent link it on this blog to go to it) about Rev Martin Luther King Jr and Pres Eisenhower. 

Today is the 50th anniversary of US President Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell address, in which he popularized the concept of the “military-industrial complex.” It is also Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
Eisenhower and King would doubtless disagree on many, many issues. The danger of unaccountable power accumulating within the military bureaucracy and its private adjuncts was one matter about which they agreed.
Yet there’s currently a great deal of revisionism and obfuscation going on around these two historical figures, particularly concerning their views on war and economics.
Last week, the Defense Department’s top lawyer argued that King, who attacked the Vietnam War as an imperial enterprise and urged young American men to become conscientious objectors in a time of active conscription, would support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“I believe that if Dr. King were alive today, he would recognize that we live in a complicated world, and that our nation’s military should not and cannot lay down its arms and leave the American people vulnerable to terrorist attack,” [Defense Department general counsel Jeh C. Johnson] said.

Johnson’s remarks have blown up across the internet, so I won’t spend too much time picking apart his conclusions. Briefly, though, here is a snippet of a King speech on Vietnam:

For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam… Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization. …
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

Colonialism. “Spiritual death.” Pretty strong words, there. But 40 years later, Johnson would have us believe, the Rev. Dr. King would have come around to the Joint Chiefs’ way of seeing things.
That quote of King’s segues nicely into the debate over today’s other American honoree, Eisenhower, a consummate military man who famously dreaded the Pentagon’s growing influence.
To hear some tell it, though, Eisenhower’s spiel about the military-industrial complex was a kind of public brain fart. At the National Review, Vincent J. Cannato uses quotes from less iconic parts of Eisenhower’s farewell address to argue that the president was “a complex and sometimes contradictory” figure who was “hardly…upset over Cold War militarism.”
The subtext, for NR readers, is, “Don’t worry about those anti-war lefties and the isolationist ‘Old Right’—we can still claim Ike would side with us in favor of permanent wars executed by private interests.”
For their part, Eisenhower’s descendants seem to think the farewell address was something more than an aberration. In another speech he made at the start of his term as President, Eisenhower offers an even more detailed critique of runaway militarism:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

Slate history columnist David Greenberg offers a more capable contrarian argument about Eisenhower’s farewell address, although he fails to fully support his contention that it “has been completely misunderstood.”
Greenberg offers a brief recap of the so-called “Merchants of Death thesis,” which emerged after World War I to explain that complex and devastating conflict. The problem with scapegoating arms traders, Greenberg writes, is that the Merchants of Death thesis “allow[s] proponents to retreat into an unearned innocence: a grand theory of global conflict that pinned the blame for wars that go badly on forces outside the public’s control, rather than on the American people and their elected leaders.”
Greenberg’s point about the exculpatory nature of conspiracy theories is well taken. There is little doubt that a majority of the American public supported the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, at least initially.
Unfortunately, Greenberg goes on to more or less conflate critics of the arms trade and the military-industrial complex with Holocaust deniers, Nazi appeasers and conspiracy-minded cult members. He concludes:

If the farewell address is invoked merely to argue against extravagant military spending or to stand up against limits on civil liberties in the name of war, then count me as a fan. When it’s used—as it all too often is these days—to build the case for a conspiratorial, demonic system that bulldozes the American people into going to war or malevolently prolongs the fighting for reasons of profit, then it should be called out for what it is: the seedbed of some of the nastier rhetoric to infect our politics in recent times.

Is Greenberg suggesting that the profit motive never plays a role in starting or prolonging wars? That is clearly false. Is he implying that discussion of wartime profits should be off the table, because it can be used to supplement “nasty” rhetoric? By that logic, religious differences ought not to be discussed, either, because they can lead to hate speech. Just because some conspiracy loons rail against war profiteers, real or imagined, does not mean that anyone who speaks of war profiteering is a conspiracy loon. Nor does it follow that because certain conspiracy theories are ugly and false, the rampant conflicts of interest throughout the defense industry have no pernicious effects on policy.
I’ll give Greenberg the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he inadvertently overstated his case. Obviously, if it is taboo to discuss the economic processes through which “unwarranted influence” is accumulated, then the public has no way to guard against what Eisenhower called “the disastrous rise of misplaced power.”
As a journalist who seeks to encourage reasoned debate around these issues, I find it personally frustrating that discussions of the arms trade and war profits inevitably attract conspiracy loons of the sort Greenberg decries. Let me be clear: There is no secret “Death Merchant” cabal in Arlington, Virginia or anywhere.
Indeed, the truly dangerous thing about the profit motive, where it overlaps with matters of war, is that no conspiracy is required for a few to gain at the expense of many. Rather, countless individual economic interests organically combine to create a system that favors war over peace, and emphasizes capital-intensive weapons production over less-intensive but more beneficial projects, such as education.
This is a reality far more difficult to accept than some dark fantasy about the Bilderbergers.
The premise of this website is that arms dealers and military contractors ought to be covered at least as thoroughly any other Washington, DC special interest group. Yet over the past several decades, the arms industry has not received the scrutiny it deserves. In part, that’s because few other lobbies can so effectively wrap themselves in the flag.
This chart was made by Christopher Preble at the libertarian CATO institute. It shows how US military spending has grown as a share of the national economy over the past decade, while in other NATO countries, it has declined. In previous posts, I’ve detailed how an increasing percentage of that military spending is directed toward private contractors, while the funding for uniformed soldiers remains stagnant. The owners of these companies, many of whom face little personal risk in America’s current conflicts, are on the receiving end of what amounts to a massive wartime wealth transfer. If that’s not an accumulation of unwarranted influence, what is?

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Ike's Warning Of Military Expansion, 50 Years Later 17JAN11

ON MLK DAY this year we also remember Pres Eisenhower's 'Beware The Pentagon Speech' and are reminded that the constant struggle for social justice, civil rights, human rights, as well as moral local, state and federal budgets that provide more for health care, housing, nutrition, education, sustainable communities and renewable energy than prisons and weapons systems is the right thing to do and we must never give up! I added the Pink Floyd video 'Dogs Of War' to the beginning of this story from NPR with Pres Eisenhower's speech following....

"Beware of the Military Industrial Complex" ~ President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell address speech. Military-industrial complex (MIC) is a concept commonly used to refer to policy relationships between governments, national armed forces, and the industrial sector that supports them. These relationships include political approval for research, development, production, use, and support for military training, weapons, equipment, and facilities within the national defense and security policy. It is a type of iron triangle.

The term is most often played in reference to the military of the United States, where it gained popularity after its use in the farewell address speech of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, though the term is applicable to any country with a similarly developed infrastructure.

It is sometimes used more broadly to include the entire network of contracts and flows of money and resources among individuals as well as institutions of the defense contractors, The Pentagon, and the Congress and executive branch. This sector is intrinsically prone to principal-agent problem, moral hazard, and rent seeking. Cases of political corruption have also surfaced with regularity.

A similar thesis was originally expressed by Daniel Guérin, in his 1936 book Fascism and Big Business, about the fascist government support to heavy industry. It can be defined as, an informal and changing coalition of groups with vested psychological, moral, and material interests in the continuous development and maintenance of high levels of weaponry, in preservation of colonial markets and in military-strategic conceptions of internal affairs

Lyrics:
Dogs of war and men of hate
With no cause, we don't discriminate
Discovery is to be disowned
Our currency is flesh and bone
Hell opened up and put on sale
Gather 'round and haggle
For hard cash, we will lie and deceive
Even our masters don't know the web we weave
One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world ... One world
Invisible transfers, long distance calls,
Hollow laughter in marble halls
Steps have been taken, a silent uproar
Has unleashed the dogs of war
You can't stop what has begun
Signed, sealed, they deliver oblivion
We all have a dark side, to say the least
And dealing in death is the nature of the beast
One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world ... One world
The dogs of war don't negotiate
The dogs of war won't capitulate,
They will take and you will give,
And you must die so that they may live
You can knock at any door,
But wherever you go, you know they've been there before
Well winners can lose and things can get strained
But whatever you change, you know the dogs remain.
One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world ... One world

**"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."**

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Morning Edition

[6 min 53 sec]

 

Enlarge Bill Allen/AP In his final speech from the White House, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that an arms race would take resources from other areas — such as building schools and hospitals.

Bill Allen/AP

In his final speech from the White House, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that an arms race would take resources from other areas — such as building schools and hospitals.

On Jan. 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower gave the nation a dire warning about what he described as a threat to democratic government. He called it the military-industrial complex, a formidable union of defense contractors and the armed forces.
Eisenhower, a retired five-star Army general, the man who led the allies on D-Day, made the remarks in his farewell speech from the White House.
As NPR's Tom Bowman tells Morning Edition co-host Renee Montagne, Eisenhower used the speech to warn about "the immense military establishment" that had joined with "a large arms industry."
Here's an excerpt:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."

Since then, the phrase has become a rallying cry for opponents of military expansion.

Source: YouTube

Eisenhower gave the address after completing two terms in office; it was just days before the new president, John F. Kennedy, would be sworn in.
Eisenhower was worried about the costs of an arms race with the Soviet Union, and the resources it would take from other areas — such as building hospitals and schools.
Bowman says that in the speech, Eisenhower also spoke as someone who had seen the horror and lingering sadness of war, saying that "we must learn how to compose differences not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose."
Another concern, Bowman says, was the possibility that as the military and the arms industry gained power, they would be a threat to democracy, with civilians losing control of the military-industrial complex.
In his remarks, Eisenhower also explained how the situation had developed:

"Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of ploughshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions."

The difference, Bowman says, is that before the late 1950s, companies such as Ford built everything from jeeps to bombers — then went back to building cars. But that changed after the Korean War.
Bowman says that it's important to note that during the Cold War, the U.S. military didn't draw down its troops like it did after World War II.
"It kept a large standing army after the Korean War," he says.
America's new reliance on sophisticated weapons technology also helped bring about what Bowman calls "a technology race with the Soviets."
And that meant that weapons manufacturing became more specialized.
"So [for] a company like Ford, going from cars to jeeps is one thing; cars to missiles is quite another," Bowman says.
In an effort to control the expansion of the military-industrial complex, Eisenhower consistently sought to cut the Pentagon's budget.
The former general wanted a budget the country could afford, Bowman says. He upset all the military services with his budget cuts, especially the Air Force.
Citing another quote from Eisenhower — this one from another speech on military spending — Bowman says, "The jet plane that roars overhead costs three quarters of a million dollars. That’s more than a man will make in his lifetime. What world can afford this kind of thing for long?"
In today's government, Eisenhower has a fan in his fellow Kansan Secretary of Defense Robert Gates — who keeps a portrait of the former general in his office at the Pentagon, Bowman says.
Speaking at the Eisenhower Library last year, Gates talked about America's insatiable appetite for more and more weapons:

"Does the number of warships we have, and are building, really put America at risk, when the U.S. battle fleet is larger than the next 13 navies combined — 11 of which are our partners and allies?
Is it a dire threat that by 2020, the United States will have only 20 times more advanced stealth fighters than China?
These are the kinds of questions Eisenhower asked as commander-in-chief. They are the kinds of questions I believe he would ask today."

But, Bowman says, it has only become more difficult to control the size of the nation's military industry.
First, "there are only a handful of defense giants," he says, "which means you can't shop around for a better price."
And companies such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are also adept at both lobbying and marketing to promote their interests.
Bowman says, "they also spread the jobs around the country, to lock in political support."
Gates has also discussed the difficulty of cutting military spending:

"What it takes is the political will and willingness, as Eisenhower possessed, to make hard choices — choices that will displease powerful people both inside the Pentagon, and out."

Bowman says that some industry observers believe that "the one thing that could create that political will is the nation's huge deficit." Only that might force cuts in the overall defense budget.

www.ourdocuments.gov January 17, 2011

Transcript of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Farewell Address (1961) My fellow Americans: Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor. This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen. Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all. Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation. My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years. In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together. II We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment. III Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad. Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology-global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle-with liberty at stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment. Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small,there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research-these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we which to travel. But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs-balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage-balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between action of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration. The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only. IV A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peace time, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea. Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United State corporations. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government. Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite. It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system-ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society. V Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we-you and I, and our government-must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow. VI Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield. Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose difference, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war-as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years-I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight. Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road. VII So-in this my last good night to you as your President-I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find somethings worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future. You and I-my fellow citizens-need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals. To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing inspiration: We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love. Transcription courtesy of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum.

Page URL:  http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=90&page=transcript

U.S. National Archives & Records Administration 700 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20408 • 1-86-NARA-NARA • 1-866-272-6272

EVIL OR GOOD

"Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it."
- Psalm 34:14

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
 

WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR OTHERS?

"Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ." - Galatians 6:2

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?" - Martin Luther King Jr.

WE ARE CLOSER TO REALIZING THE DREAM THAN MANY WANT TO ADMIT AND ACCEPT, SO THE WORK AND STRUGGLE CONTINUES 28AUG10

ON the day celebrating the 47th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Dream' speech here is an article from Mother Jones celebrating the fact that we are getting closer to realizing the dream.....and I have also included Rev. King's speech (and added it to the Speeches page on this blog) I still get goosebumps when I listen to him give this speech. And be sure to check out the attached stories from MOJO.

Turning Westboro Church's Hate Into Charity (VIDEO)

— By Adam Weinstein

| Wed Aug. 18, 2010 11:29 AM PDT

— Courtesy of Pennies in Protest

"What would happen if hate came to your town?"
It's a simple question. Four Richmond, Virginia, moms faced it last March, when they learned that Fred Phelps' roadshow of hate—the anti-gay, anti-Jew, anti-America, proto-nihilist Westboro Baptist Church—was headed to their town. The abusive Westies, who are famous for celebrating the funerals of fallen soldiers and intimidating grade schoolers, planned to bring their multi-colored signs and cuss-laden chants to four area sites: the Virginia Holocaust museum, the local Jewish Community Center, a Jewish day camp called the Jerusalem Connection, and the Straight-Gay Student Alliance at Hermitage High School.
How to resist such a movement? Counter-protests? Sure. Just make sure the anger and violence is all their side, not yours.
Singing? OK, it's worked before.
Blocking their access? Lord, no. The church "elders" are all attorneys, who live to sue and counter-sue everyone who challenges them, citing their First Amendment rights.
Anyway, all of these are ephemeral responses. The Westies come, 11-year-old hate-spewing child in tow, they say their piece, they get TV coverage, then they move on and do it again. A counter-protest is for one day. Westboro's hate goes on forever.
So Sarah Allen-Short, Jessica Lucia, Sara Heifetz, and Patience Salgado decided to do more. They harnessed Richmond residents' anti-Westboro frustrations to solicit donations for the targeted Jewish and LGBT organizations. The deal: Give a dollar for every minute WBC protests.
That was how Pennies in Protest started. They figured they'd get $1,000 or so. But by the time WBC blew out of town, 500 individuals had given more than $14,000. Their Facebook page had 3,000 fans. And people across the country were asking how to do it in their own communities.

Oh yeah, and WBC got drowned out by counter-protesters at every stop, too. And GayRVA, the local LGBT publication, made the four women their "Out.Spoken" Richmonders of the year.
"We're always trying to do better things in the world and this was just a no-brainer," Allen-Short told GayRVA. "It seemed like the only thing that's not complicated. It's not political, but I think that’s what was cool about it."
Now, these ladies can't drop their lives to follow WBC's hate-speech caravan all over the globe. So they did the next best thing: They started a website, PenniesinProtest.com, that explains their success story and how it can be duplicated by anyone anywhere. Fourteen easy steps show how to start a charity for kindness against hate.
But the best step of all? Step 13. It probably came naturally to group co-founder Salgado, who uses her blog, Kindness Girl, to chronicle "her adventures in what she calls 'Guerrilla Goodness'—from leaving Starbucks cards all over Carytown to writing inspiring messages in sidewalk chalk to students across the city on their first day of school."
Hence, Step 13:

It was important to us to let the Westboro Baptist Church know that the organizations they hate the most benefitted directly from their visit to our city. If they had never come here and chanted their hateful messages, our local community wouldn’t have donated $14,000 to local Jewish and LGBT organizations. They came here to harm our local Jewish and LGBT people, and their visit resulted in love and support.
So we made them a beautiful thank you note, and we mailed it to them.

This morning, Allen-Short sent me a note, too, on Twitter. But it's not really for me, it's for you: "WBC is headed to CA and NE next, so maybe some MoJo readers there will take up the cause. thx!"
Any takers?

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  Singing Hate Groups Off Campus

  Shouted down by Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church chorus of anger, a Bay Area school sings the haters away.
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  The Fox News pundit steps in to pay legal fees for a fallen Marine's father who was done wrong by a hate-spouting "church."

I Have a Dream Speech - Address at March on Washington 28AUG63
http://www.mlkonline.net/video-i-have-a-dream-speech.html

Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream Speech





I Have a Dream Speech

Full text (transcribed from audio)

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. *We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: "For Whites Only."* We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."¹

martin luther king I have a dream speech

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."²

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

martin luther king I have a dream speech

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of
Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!³



¹ Amos 5:24 (rendered precisely in The American Standard Version of the Holy Bible)

² Isaiah 40:4-5 (King James Version of the Holy Bible). Quotation marks are excluded from part of this moment in the text because King's rendering of Isaiah 40:4 does not precisely follow the KJV version from which he quotes (e.g., "hill" and "mountain" are reversed in the KJV). King's rendering of Isaiah 40:5, however, is precisely quoted from the KJV.

³ At: http://www.negrospirituals.com/news-song/free_at_last_from.htm

External Link: http://www.mlkmemorial.org/

External Link: http://www.thekingcenter.org/